AUGUST
Nothing can really prepare you for suddenly being the sanest person you know. Especially not me. It's like an entirely new cycle of responsibilities; people come to you with their problems and expect you to have advice, their secrets and expect you to keep them, but worst of all they always expect you to do the right thing. How am I supposed to do that when the wrong thing is 1. so much easier, 2. guarantees that no one will be relying on you for anything, and 3. You get to do whatever you want.
"Here." I sit Lily's food on the counter in front of her.
"Hostile much?" She raises an eyebrow.
"I didn't even do anything." I shake my head.
Aside from the things that I'm supposed to do, which seem to be the only things I do these days. I guess I'm not complaining because I've done my fair share of wrong things, but this is so boring. I don't wish to be inflicting pain on others or anything, but maturity has come at the price of free will.
"Hi!" Someone shrieks from behind us.
I see Melody walking up to us so excitedly that her footsteps are almost jumping.
"What are you so excited about?" I raise a skeptical eyebrow. It can't be anything good for the general population.
"Why are you even here?" Lily scowls.
"Well, I'm visiting my grandad who just had a kidney transplant. That's beside the point though. One, he's going to live, and two-just to add to this glorious day- Catalina and Ashton are so over. I overheard–"
"Catalina and Ashton are not over." Lily interrupts.
"Anyway. I overheard her– because Ashton was like the overseer of the surgery board so he was checking in with my dad- and when he left I heard her talking to some nurse about how he's been flirting with his ex from college-"
"Melinda is his ex!?" Lily gasps.
"Yes. and apparently they're always together, like friends but-"
"but you can't be friends with your ex if you're married." Lily finishes for her and then is sure to send me a glare afterward.
"Melody is not my ex," I say.
"Right. So, Ashton must like the woman-"
"Or..." this time I interrupt. "Maybe they're just friends. It's completely possible and I don't see why he wouldn't love Catalina-"
"What is that supposed to mean?" I can see Lily snap her head in my direction from the corner of my eyes.
"I just... mean that they're married and he's loved her forever, even when she was a mess, so I can't see why he wouldn't now." I'm sure to emphasize the he part so that she gets I completely mean Ashton and not me.
Lily, no matter how hard we both try, won't believe that I'm fully over Catalina. I'm not even entirely sure all the things I used to feel about Catalina were actually accurate depictions of my emotions. I wasn't in a good space then and was grasping at any reason to feel something.
"Are you guys gossiping about Ashton cheating?" I hear Catalina's voice behind me and I flinch.
She's always creeping up at the worst times.
"No." I lie.
"You're lying." She squeezes in between Melody and me so that she can lean into the conversation. "So what do you think? Am I crazy or am I right?"
I look over at her to see if she's serious, but her face doesn't budge an inch.
"You don't want advice from us," I say.
"Not you." She rolls her eyes at me. "You." She looks at Lily.
Lily looks up from her food and blinks. "Uhm.... if he said he wasn't then-"
"Are you guys talking about Catalina thinking I'm cheating on her?" Ashton walks up and now this is really going sour.
He squeezes in between Melody and Lily, folding his hands on the counter. Everyone stops talking to look at him.
"I am not cheating on you. Stop telling everyone that." He turns his head to look at Catalina, keeping his voice down like the rest of us.
"My sources..." Catalina does a gesture to the group. "All believe that it's true."
"That's-that's not true," I add for clarification.
"Well, he's in love with you." He does a slight hand gesture toward me. "She barely likes you and she..." he stops to give Melody a look and she smiles. "She is crazy. So?"
"Crazy because you cheated on her too!?"
"I didn't! She made that up just like you're making this up." He says and then pauses. "I know that sounds like I'm the bad guy, but it's the truth."
"I never said I barely like her, stop making things up." Lily narrows her eyes. "We just... have our differences."
"and I'm not in love with her, okay? It's time we all drop this narrative." I look straight at Lily when I say all.
Lily raises her eyebrow at me in return. "Well, maybe we all should stop insinuating things that are no longer- because let's not pretend at some point these things weren't true- accurate."
"I agree." Ashton agrees.
"This is why I'm single." Melody does a sigh of contentment. I'm sure her day just keeps getting better. Especially now, seeing the two couples she never liked argue.
"She thinks because I used to date Melinda and now we're friends I must be having an affair." Ashton begins to explain. "I didn't tell her we used to date because I knew she would react like this and now look."
He has a point, sort of. I see why Catalina is mad that he lied, but she also isn't the easiest person to be transparent with. I'm sure, no matter what, she would've come to this same conclusion regardless.
"Oh!" Melody gasps. "Melinda!" She waves her hand from where we are across the room.
Much to everyone's misfortune, the woman who I assume is Melinda walks towards us. She looks a little confused, but not the kind of confusion that a woman who is completely innocent would have. It's a guilty kind of confusion. I don't know, I might be on Catalina's side. Of course, you are...a voice that mimics Lily says in my head and I huff out loud.
"Yeah?" She raises one of her arched eyebrows.
"Are you sleeping with him?" Melody points at Ashton and I watch the bewildered look on his face when he hears her question.
"No?" Melinda's eyebrows sink into her forehead and this time it's genuine confusion.
"Do you want to?"
Then, the woman does the worst thing possible and laughs. I want to laugh too, I almost do, but no one else at the table thinks any of this is funny.
"He's married."
"Sounding more guilty every second." Melody shakes her head when she turns back to us in order to deliver the news like we can't also hear the conversation.
"Never stopped a girl before." Melody shrugs.
Then, instead of saying anything else, Melinda looks right at Catalina. Great. Catalina is almost, in the nicest way I can say this, like an animal. Once you make eye contact it's all over.
I see her mouth open a little in shock. I watch her close it as she fights the urge to say anything.
"How about you go take a walk buddy." I lightly pat Catalina's shoulder prompting her to roll her eyes.
Catalina scoffs at Ashton, although he isn't the one who's said anything, and then she does walk away. It seems a little dramatic, but it really is for the best.
"You are the devil." He looks at Melody in disbelief. Then he turns to me. "and why is she even here? She's your friend."
"You're the one who gave her grandfather a kidney. This one is all on you." I sigh.
He huffs and walks away, following Catalina I presume.
"You." I turn around to Lily once they all leave and she narrows her eyes. "Stop it."
She scoffs and does a childish eye roll before grabbing her food off of the desk. "Go home and feed my baby."
"Oh." I laugh. "Now I've been demoted from lunch with you to lunch with a snotty three-year-old?"
"I'm telling her you said so."
"Messy." I scoff from behind her as she walks away.
***********
The timer for Lily's pregnancy test goes off and her eyes immediately dart to her phone. They go from anxious to drained in a matter of seconds.
"Just don't look at it tonight."
I see her sigh. She's kind of given up, but she keeps trying and hoping for the best. I don't mean to feed into the idea that she should give up, but every time a test is negative she only gets upset and I think for one night she should spare herself the disappointment.
"Yeah." She agrees. "I think I should give up at all, honestly."
"I don't think so," I tell her. "I mean, it's something you really want."
"but you don't. So what's the point?"
"That's not–"
"Don't bother." She rolls her eyes. "I notice that you never even look slightly upset when a test is negative. You're only sad that at the expense of getting what you want, I'm not getting what I want. You couldn't care less about a baby." She scoffs.
"Lily, I told you that I didn't want another baby," I say. "I'm supporting you despite that, which is what I agreed to. I can't magically just want a kid."
"Okay." She shakes her head, somehow managing to sound more annoyed and righteous than she looks.
"I don't know what you want me to do."
"Nothing." She turns to look at me with her eyes narrowed.
I don't know what's worse: if she checks the test and starts crying herself to sleep or her frustration from now knowing what it'll say causing her to act like this.
I do wish that I wanted to have another baby. So that way I don't have to be terrified of the test coming back positive, and I don't have to secretly wish it comes back positive so that she doesn't cry even though I'm petrified. I wouldn't feel guilty for being slightly relieved that I have a little while longer before we have another baby. Aside from those fears, I don't want to be the dad who's looking at a child he never wanted. Alyssa was different. I didn't- or at least I didn't care to - worry about being a good person while also being a good dad. I just wanted to be a good dad, and no one else in the world mattered so it was easy. Now, I have to care about other people too and it's all too much.
"If Catalina was your wife–" she starts and I can't believe she's saying it.
"Don't even start this." I groan and lay my head back on the headboard.
"I'm being serious." She jerks her head around to force me to look at her regardless of if I have my head leaned back or not.
"How can you possibly be serious?"
"Because you can't want the one thing I want but you can keep trying to want her to like you and going meet her at these places and 'talk'."
"Catalina giving me some dumb letter isn't the same as raising a baby when I was barely good at it the first time."
"Tell her that it's dumb to her face."
I sigh.
"Exactly. You wouldn't. but you have no problem telling me exactly how it is– no matter how harsh– all the time. Just try to spare my feelings for once."
I don't think that I'm being harsh though. I'm just saying the truth and I'm only doing that because she keeps forcing it out of me. Catalina is the furthest thing from my mind and she has been even before she got married and had children.
I don't know how to make Lily understand that. I see how she feels. Back then, I did care about Catalina so much to the point where I wouldn't even try to hide it. Lily and I weren't serious though. Alyssa wasn't born, those sorts of things didn't put a strain on a relationship that barely existed between us. Lily never used to say anything when it mattered, so I assumed that she didn't notice or didn't care.
"What is the problem?" I say through a heavy sigh.
"Two. We're married and I can't have a baby. and you're my husband, but I feel like you'd do anything for her and that's my problem."
I wouldn't. Somehow, I find myself incapable of explaining to her what it is. It's that Catalina doesn't really have anyone– well maybe she does now– but I still see her as the person who didn't. So, whenever she's in an uncomfortable situation or in actual danger, I feel the need to be there for her. Not because I love her, but because I have this unexplainable impulse to make sure she's okay. I feel like I've done so much to her already that she shouldn't have to go through anything else. So, if she thinks having all of these meetings will somehow heal her, then who am I to deny her the right to at least try?
"I love you," I say to Lily. She doesn't want to hear anything else because she's mad. No amount of logic is going to make it any less so.
"Goodnight." She scoffs and turns her back to me.
CATALINA
At home, I wait for Ashton to come in like I always do. I never used to feel pathetic about it, I used to enjoy it, but lately, I've been feeling lots of things that are unlike myself. I don't know why, I don't know what's going on. I understand that the anxiety I have is a perpetual thing that lives within me, but I can't understand why I've chosen now to keep letting it win.
I say that I won't, but it's too late, I already have. I let it win when I left home for a week, convincing myself that it would somehow be better if I could leave first. I thought I would be better off if I could leave Ashton now before he inevitably leaves me in two or five years. Now, he's mad at me for it and I'm mad at him for lying and we're stuck in this horrible place all because I can't decide when and when not to let my fears get the best of me.
"Hi," I say from the couch. I'm sitting cross-legged and staring at the door. I couldn't make it any more obvious that I was waiting for him.
"Hi." He responds.
"How was work?"
I expect him to say it would've been better if I didn't get a job there only to stalk him throughout my shift or then I worry that he'll say it was amazing and then I'll have to worry if Melinda did something to make it so.
"It was okay, I guess." He shrugs. "No one died."
"Well, that's amazing." I smile.
He doesn't say anything else. He just starts to go up the stairs and without thinking about it, I start to follow him.
"I cooked," I say. This is only something I do when I feel like I've been a horrible wife, so now he's going to know for sure that I feel guilty.
"I'm too tired to eat." He sighs in disappointment. "Maybe if I got home earlier, but thank you anyway. I know it probably took some time."
"Oh, no..."I try not to sound disappointed like he does. "It's okay."
He starts to change into his pajamas so I figure now would be a good time for me to do it too. I don't know why I haven't already.
"I don't know why it seems like some days you love me and some days you're mad at me," I say. There's no point in pretending I don't care about these things trying not to seem silly.
"I love you all days." Ashton says. I know that he means it, but it doesn't sound like it.
"Well, I guess what I mean is it doesn't feel like you want to love me or you know.. That you like loving me. That's why I left, I guess. You were mean to me and it hurt my feelings and I thought it was because of Melinda. I thought that spending so much time with her made you realize that a person like me isn't what you want."
"I don't spend so much time with Melinda, we're just friends, but I'll stop-"
"No, I don't want to control you and tell you who to be friends with." I sigh. "But, I think she likes you and that isn't me being crazy. She'd go for it if you did, I know it."
"I think that's just how she acts, I don't know." He says dismissively. "but it doesn't matter."
"Okay then." I force a little smile, thinking it would lighten the mood. "How come you're not happy right now?"
"I'm just tired."
"Okay." I sigh. "Well, if you need anything you can ask."
He laughs a little. "Why are you being so nice? I'm worried."
I smile, for real this time. "because I love you and you deserve for me to be the nicest I can be. and, I want us to be back to how we were."
"Okay." He smiles. "Well let's watch something on tv and talk." He gets into bed and I get beside him.
"If you're going to stay up, you have to eat my food." I smile.
"I promise I'll eat it tomorrow. For breakfast, lunch, and dinner." He laughs.
"You can bring Melinda some too," I suggest.
Ashton laughs. "Is it poisoned?."
"Maybe." I joke.
"Why does our show have the completed white line on all of these episodes?" He asks.
"I was mad at you so I finished it." I conceal a smile.
"Dirty work."
"Do you think we should go to therapy or something? Get ahead of the problem?" I ask him.
I've been thinking about it for a while. Just because we seem fine, doesn't mean that we are. Somewhere beneath the surface, he's still mad at me for leaving and I'm still mad at him for lying. No amount of love that we have for one another is going to erase that unless we're open and honest about it.
"Do you think so?" He asks.
"Yeah. I do." I nod. "I want us to last and I see now that if we don't lay things out on the table then we'll just become a resentful wreck. I think that we love one another too much, so no one wants to hurt the other's feelings, and we won't be able to have the hard conversations ourselves."
"You're so smart." He smiles. "I wish I came up with solutions that way."
"That's why you have me." I laugh.
"Okay, we can go."
"I'll schedule us then."
I say it like I'm so sure, but I'm actually panicking on the inside. I'm not sure if I want to know all the honest, and unfiltered things he thinks about me.